Codex remote control: from your phone, on Mac, Windows or Linux

Codex remote control is OpenAI's Codex Remote: pair the ChatGPT app on your phone with the ChatGPT desktop app on a Mac or Windows PC, then start, steer and approve Codex work from the phone. OpenAI documents no Linux host. To drive the Codex CLI from a phone on any of the three systems, Caprock pairs the phone by QR code, and it reaches the computer from anywhere through an end-to-end encrypted relay.

How Codex remote control works

Codex keeps running on your computer; the phone is a window into it. From OpenAI's remote connections page, read 20 October 2026:

• The host does the work. Files, shell commands, MCP servers, skills and credentials come from the connected computer. The phone sends prompts, approvals and follow-ups.
• Through OpenAI. "A secure relay layer keeps trusted machines reachable across your authorized ChatGPT devices without exposing them directly to the public internet."
• Same account. The host's desktop app and the phone are signed in to the same ChatGPT account and workspace.
• The host stays awake. "If that computer sleeps, loses network access, or closes the app, remote access stops." A Mac laptop stays reachable with the lid open on power, or closed with an external display attached.

It launched for the Mac on 14 May 2026, added Windows hosts on 29 May, and reached general availability on 25 June, when pairing became one QR code per phone and host.

Set up Codex Remote on a Mac or Windows PC

What you can do from the Codex mobile app

There is no separate Codex app for phones: Codex lives in the ChatGPT app for iOS and Android, under Codex (Remote in older versions). From it you can:

• Start or continue chats in the host's projects, or a Cloud task in an environment.
• Steer — send follow-ups and answer questions while it works.
• Approve commands and other actions before Codex runs them.
• Review responses, diffs, test results, terminal output and screenshots.
• Get notified when a task finishes or needs you, and switch between hosts.

On a Windows host, keep the session unlocked: Computer Use runs in the foreground there.

Which plans include it

OpenAI's pricing page lists Mobile remote control on Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise, and not on an API key; the Free and Go plans have no column in that table. In a ChatGPT workspace, an admin may have to turn Remote Control on first.

Codex remote control on Linux

OpenAI's docs name Mac and Windows hosts, and the Linux desktop app, in preview, does not mention remote access. The iOS app's changelog does mention Linux — attachments on connected hosts "including Windows and Linux" on 1 September 2026, a fix for pairing failures and "SSH connection issues on Mac and Linux" on 23 September — but no doc describes setting up a Linux host. Users report what that means:

• The QR code is there, pairing fails. On the Linux preview, Settings → Connections → Control this PC shows a QR code, and the phone ends with "Pairing Failed" — on Fedora on 18 August 2026 and on Ubuntu 24.04 on 21 August, in a forum request for Linux support.
• No date. OpenAI Support replied on 8 September 2026: "Remote is currently documented for Mac and Windows hosts … We don't have a timeline to share." The thread is closed.
• The CLI's own command. Codex CLI has codex remote-control, marked "[experimental]" in its source, which starts Codex's app-server daemon with remote control on; codex remote-control pair prints a short-lived pairing code. OpenAI's CLI reference describes it for managed clients and SSH workflows, not as phone setup.
• Open issues on Linux CLI hosts. #31183 (opened 5 July 2026): a headless Linux CLI could not be paired again after the move to QR pairing; the pair command has appeared since, and the issue is still open. #40026 (21 August): an Android phone connects to a Linux CLI host and drops after a fraction of a second.

Codex Remote not working on Windows

Open on openai/codex on 20 October 2026:

• "Unable to enable remote control" after pressing Allow, with no QR code — #31387, opened 7 July 2026 on the Microsoft Store build and reproduced on 26.721; #43459 reports the same on 26.901 in September.
• A Business account fails, a personal one works on the same Windows PC — #42575, opened 3 September 2026.
• Android stuck on "Waiting for desktop…" with a Windows host — #22733, opened 15 May 2026, reproduced again in August.

Before filing your own: both apps updated, the same account and workspace on both, the host awake (and unlocked, for Computer Use), and in a workspace, Remote Control turned on by the admin. A connection unused since 8 June 2026 has to be paired again. In #42575, two users on Business accounts got past the error by turning on multi-factor authentication, on 9 and 18 September 2026; two Mac users wrote on 13 and 15 October that it did not help them.

Codex on your phone with Caprock, on any OS

OpenAI's remote is a phone for the one app it pairs with. Caprock is a free, open-source desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux that records every agent on the machine and starts the codex CLI you installed in a terminal tab, on your own sign-in. On a phone it is the same app in the browser, on Wi‑Fi or mobile data, through a relay that carries only end-to-end ciphertext; no account.

From then on the phone can:

• Start Codex with + Start work on the full dashboard, or a new session in any folder under your home directory: pick Codex, a model from Codex's own list and a permission mode, which becomes Codex's own flags (below).
• Chat with it. The session opens on its chat, with Codex's replies. Type in the field and press Send.
• Answer its menus with the keys bar: Esc, Tab, ↑, ↓, Enter and Ctrl+C, the keys you would press at the computer.
• Attach a photo, commit and push from the Changes tab, or stop the session.

⤢

A phone paired with It can control sessions unticked only reads until you press Allow control beside it, and the daemon checks that on every request. Run on 9 October 2026 on a preview daemon built from Caprock's source, from a phone paired over the network address, with a stand-in for codex that prints the bytes it receives:

Answer Codex's approval prompts from the phone

Codex asks before a command in its own terminal menu: "1. Yes, proceed (y)", then a "don't ask again" option for commands that start the same way (p), then "No, and tell Codex what to do differently (esc)". On the phone:

• Approve: open the Terminal tab to see the menu, move with ↑ or ↓ and press Enter.
• Decline: press Esc, then type what Codex should do instead.

Caprock reads Claude Code's prompts from its hooks and draws Yes and No buttons for them. Codex reports no approval Caprock can read, so a Codex prompt has no buttons and sends no Telegram alert.

What Caprock does not do for Codex

• It does not drive OpenAI's app. It starts the Codex CLI. A chat you run in the ChatGPT desktop app shows up in Caprock with its cost, but you cannot type into it from Caprock.
• Only sessions it started. A Codex session you started in your own terminal is read, never typed into.
• No phone app. The phone uses its browser, which can be added to the home screen.
• A held message can meet a menu. A message sent while offline waits and goes when the phone reconnects. In a session's chat it joins the queue and goes in when the turn ends; on the Terminal tab it stays a draft only while a prompt Caprock can see is waiting, and Caprock cannot see Codex's prompts, so check the Terminal tab before you resend.
• Run end to end on macOS. Starting and typing into Codex is verified on macOS. On Windows and Linux it builds and its tests pass in CI, but it has not been run against a real Codex there.

Which to use

• Codex Remote — your host is a Mac or a Windows PC that pairs, you use the ChatGPT desktop app, and you want OpenAI's own screens and push notifications from anywhere.
• Caprock — your host is Linux, Windows pairing fails, you run the Codex CLI rather than the app, or you want Codex and Claude Code side by side on the phone with no account. For Claude Code the same pairing is covered in Claude Code on your phone, and Anthropic's own version in Claude Code Remote Control.

Caprock is free and open source: every agent on your machine, whether or not it started them, with who is waiting on you, how close each subscription is to its limit and what each pull request cost; nothing leaves your machine but the ciphertext a paired phone reads. Install Caprock.